Africa

19 March 2005
A government that gives in to multinationals at home cannot curb their ravages abroad. That is the central reason why Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa is little more than a PR exercise.

19 March 2005
African SpiritsVarious artistsSoul Brother
In 1995 the John Coltrane disciple Pharoah Sanders sang the refrain, "Our roots began in Africa." He was recreating a form of music that developed in the late 1960s, known as "spiritual jazz".

05 March 2005
The centrepiece of chancellor Gordon Brown’s "Marshall Plan for Africa" came under fire from the World Development Movement (WDM) last week. Far from helping the world’s poorest, it will actively undermine the campaign to end global poverty.

05 March 2005
HAVE YOU read The Constant Gardener by John Le Carré? It is about the human suffering caused by a Western pharmaceutical company which uses Africans as guinea pigs for drug testing. In Cameroon, West Africa, that fiction is terribly alive.

05 March 2005
I lived for many years in South Africa, during the dark days of apartheid. During that time, Britain’s legal system was held up as a beacon of light and hope, as the prison bars of the apartheid state closed around us.

26 February 2005
British ministers’ claims that they are leading the global fight against poverty will ring hollow unless the government changes policies which harm rather than help developing countries.

19 February 2005
One of Africa’s most brutal dictators died last week. The population he had repressed for over four decades first rejoiced and then burst into protest for change and democracy. Gnassingbe Eyadema’s death brought to an end 38 years of his rule in Togo. The military then announced that his son, Faure Gnassingbe, would be taking over immediately as president.

05 February 2005
FEAR AND hatred of all things Islamic and Middle Eastern is nothing new. Within a relatively short period of time from the 7th century, Islam spread across the Middle East, North Africa and finally into Europe itself, through Spain. Christendom was threatened and outraged. The Eastern Roman Empire faced a new foe — a new "barbarian at the gates".

29 January 2005
"Same car, different driver" is a phrase you can hear on the streets of the West African country of Sierra Leone every day. It sums up our bitter feelings about the government which has ruled since civil war began in 1991.

29 January 2005
THE PROBLEM of debt repayment is at its most acute in Africa where countries already blighted by war are also forced to spend billions repaying or simply servicing debt. This means that there is no investment in infrastructure, education or health. As a campaigner for refugees in Glasgow I have been working with the African community to stop deportations.

22 January 2005
GORDON BROWN will have been delighted to have his photo taken next to a smiling Nelson Mandela last weekend. It was an important battle won against Tony Blair in the contest over who will be seen as the "saviour of Africa".

15 January 2005
Highlights from Bookmarks children’s section include If the If the World were a Village by David J Smith (£6.99). It points out that if the world was a village of 100 people, nine would speak English, while 22 would speak a Chinese dialect, 13 people would be from Africa but only five would be from the US. It’s a large format picture book with facts and illustrations about the lives of people all over the world.

08 January 2005
THE BBC traditionally fills the time between Christmas and the new year with programmes reviewing the state of world politics. There was one on Radio Four on New Year’s Day by leading BBC journalists.